respublica

Glitterati and Luminaries

The current St. Louis Magazine (December) includes two women of local interest. 

Janice Mudd, artist and wife of Concordia Seminary's facilities director, is featured in the magazine's Glitterati section.  She attended the St. Luke's Hosptital Spirit Girls Night Out and is seen painting in her photo.

Clayton Mayor, Linda Goldstein is highlighted as one of St. Louis' Luminaries, "people whose ideas glow so brightly, they illuminate a path for the rest of us."  Her efforts in sustainable environmental work in Clayton has made Clayton the area leader in this area.  She is also one of the nicest people you'll ever meet.

The Luminary story is not yet linked on the website. 

Petitions to stop the sale of KFUO

Yesterday two petitions, actually three, were filed with the FCC to stop the sale of classical music station, KFUO, to Creative Gateway Broadcasting.

The petitions "to Deny Assignment of License” to Gateway were filed by the Committee to Save KFUO-FM and the Radio Arts Foundation.

The third was filed by Buzz Media or some such.

The Committee to Save KFUO-FM is made up of local members of the LCMS; the Foundation is people from the old Radio Arts Board, which raised more than $800,000 to support classical music on KFUO and sought to buy the station from the LCMS.

The worst newspaper column of the week

Was written by the Post-Dispatch's Kevin Horrigan.

Four words of pure, utter terror

I'm not familiar with Moe Lane, but that is what he wrote on his blog.

Four words of pure, utter terror

Bud Light...Honey Wheat

"It’s real.  I’ve seen it.  I’ve tasted it.  Thankfully, my taste buds shut down in self defense after the first sip.  Even the guy giving away samples didn’t try to push it too hard."

Ha.  Advertised during every currrent football game, but it sounds undrinkable to me too.

Turtle Park

The boys visited Turtle Park across from the zoo yesterday.

Connor chats with a little turtle.

 

Big brother Christian explains it all.

Every time they visit they go to Turtle Park.  You can see how much they grow by comparing each set of photos.

Big Bend re-opens

Tomorrow.  Friday.  This is a huge relief.  Highway 40 being closed was tough, but closing many of the main north/south surface streets like Big Bend and Hanley have made things hard hard hard.

By the afternoon rush hour Big Bend will be driveable, no more meandering around narrow side streets trying to get somewhere.

But, why does MoDOT have to have a ribbon cutting everytime they re-open a road?  Can't they just have one major ribbon cutting in December when the whole thing is done?

December can't get here fast enough

We've had family in from out of town for my mother's funeral which was yesterday.  The burial was in Collinsville.

Let's just say trying to explain to people who do not live here how to get from Concordia Seminary to Collinsville with the east half of Highway 40 shut down is difficult.  They look at you as if you're speaking Greek.  What we've had to do most of the time is stay on cell phones and describe what to do as they drive or get in the car and lead.

December 7th is the supposed opening of the highway.  It can't get here fast enough.

Jeff Cooper looks away from Collinsville

Jeff Cooper, metro east attorney and pro soccer owner hopeful, has decided to band together with owners in Atlanta, Raleigh, Minnesota, Montreal, and Vancouver to look into the possibility of creating a new pro soccer league.

MLS has consistently turned away from offering a franchise to St. Louis.

If a new league is formed, what does that mean for the plans in place to build a soccer stadium complex in Collinsville?

Cooper:  "Right now we're really focused on expanding the Anheuser-Busch Soccer Park [in Fenton]."

St. Louis County election results November 3

Update 9:15  The smoking ban is passing handily as is the sales tax increase for emergency communications.  Stacey Newman is also way ahead of Daniel F. O'Sullivan in the 73rd district representative race.

With a fairly low voter turnout and few candidates or propositions on the ballot, you'd think the County election board would be publishing the results much faster.  But no.

So far the only ballots counted seem to be the absentees and these results have support for a smoking ban ahead by a good margin-68-31 percent.

Absentee results for the sales tax increase in support of emergency communications have yes votes ahead 64-35 percent.

Absentee results for representative in the 73rd district-Stacy Newman leads Daniel F. O'Sullivan 53-45 percent.

More complete results as they become available

Election day in St. Louis County

An off year November election in St. Louis County brings two major ballot issues before voters.

1.  Prop N-   Yes or No to approve a county wide smoking ban.  Casinos and bars which receive 75 percent or more of their revenue from alcohol sales would be exempt.

2.  E-911-  Yes or No to approve a 0.1 sales tax increase to fund the county's emergency communications system.   If passed  the County’s 100 or so police and fire departments will begin connecting to each other and will make it possible for emergency operators to locate callers more quickly.

What bothers me is the total hypocrisy of the smoking ban law exempting casinos.  If health is the issue, it should apply to all businesses.  The fact that St. Louis County, and Illinois for that matter, sees casino revenues as more important than second hand smoke problems tells me where their priorites really are. 

Oh, wait.  Illinois banned smoking in casinos.  Which means we can't believe the St. Louis County health officials when they say they want to clear the air.  What they want is a continuing revenue stream from Illinois smokers coming to Missouri casinos.